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I sort of feel like I pissed my day away yesterday, but then, I’m allowed to piss my days away. I did errands, picked up sandwiches from the bakery (I was in search of a morning glory muffin but fortunately they didn’t have any (Must Make Diet Version). And then I decided to sew. Still can’t find the quilt top I want to quilt (a Christmas teapot quilt I was making for my mother). But I did make these two iPod holders. Need to add straps and a flap, but I had fun. But for now, I’m going to church. A little more decorating, a little more decluttering, maybe some wrapping. Oh, and those morning glory muffins. Maybe I’ll see if I can finish the dining room and head for the kitchen. And finish the ipod pouches.
All these things and I’m having fun doing it.
But in the meantime, it’s the second Sunday in Advent, and off I go.

Good day yesterday. When Erin and Alex were over on Thursday I’d said I’d be happy to pick him up after school etc., and she said Friday might be a possibility though her sister was lined up to do it. But it was simply a possibility, and when she told Alex yesterday morning that her sister would be picking her up he said “but you said Grandma Krissie could do it!” Heh heh. So I got him yesterday too.
Had a grumpy moment with Richie before I went off to write, but called him back and apologized for my half of it. He said the wrong thing at the wrong time, but I reacted badly.
Which is why we’re so happy together. When either of us screws up we take responsibility.
So I went off and got a little accomplished, then took my mother out while I went to mail off a package of stuff to my son. Realized there wasn’t time, took her out to lunch. She wanted a Dunkin Donuts breakfast sandwich (she didn’t want to get out of the car for a restaurant) so I went to Subway and got a healthy one for me first and we sat and ate. Picked up Alex, treated them both to creamees (soft serve ice cream) and then dropped her off.
Fell asleep at 6:30. I just couldn’t keep my eyes open. I think the stress was taking its toll on me and I’m catching up.
So. Today.
I think it’s a decluttering/cleaning day. Oh, and a sewing day. I’ve been dying to sew since I was in Ohio (though I left the gorgeous material I bought behind — quelle idiote!) But I have plenty of projects to work on, and that will be fun.
Funny that spending the day decluttering feels like self-indulgence. Funny how I suddenly feel anxiety creeping in.
As for the food, just doing my best. Working on just holding my own while I slowly get my life back in order. The breakup of a 4 year relationship, of a family that was so dear to me, is hard, harder than many things people usually have to go through. It’s not a momentary disappointment or a fight with your husband. So I need a little time.
But ordering my household, or working on it, will be in lieu of ordering my family.
Now if I were Queen of the Universe …

I got into the pin-cushion-on-a-pedestal thing by accident. If you sew, you need a pin cushion, and I loved my classic fat tomato, but I kept losing it in clutter on the sewing table. So one day, in a fit of frustration, I grabbed an old white wood candlestick I never used, squirted some Goop on top of it, and socked my tomato down. To this day, it’s still my fave. I like the incongruity of the simple, everyday tomato on top of the white, classical column. Mostly I like that I never lose my pin cushion any more. It’s always high above the fray.

So when I first got Popeye (the chair I’m reupholstering slooooowly that only has one button on the back so Krissie called it Popeye) many years ago, he needed a footstool and I found a butt-ugly one at Goodwill for not much. (Twenty bucks maybe? Not more. I’m cheap.) It was this hideous gray-green ribbed fabric, so I covered it with three different kinds of red upholstery and shoved it up next to Popeye who was also wearing red at the time. Then the dogs destroyed the top, and rather than reupholster it, I spray-painted it blue with plastic paint. (You can get spray fabric dye, too.) But now Popeye is getting a makeover, so Swee’Pea must change, too. Besides, it was looking really bad: Continue reading →

I have two different areas in the cottage I’m trying to get old furniture ready for (aka painting and upholstering). The main floor where people will visit is in cottage colors, rich pastels, blues and yellows with pink accents. This is so not my kind of color, but it’s going to be relaxing and cosy and most important, it’s going to fit the house. The ground floor where I’ll be working and doing most of my living (aka dogs, writing, and dropping things on the floor) is just a walk-out basement right now. The house is on a hill, so the back of the basement is underground, but two thirds of it is above ground with windows and the back is a walk-out with windows all around. So down there, where nobody but the dogs and I will ever go, I can make whatever color I want. And I want color. On the other hand, it’s easy to lose my grip and just splash the stuff everywhere, so I rely on a tried and true cheat: I find a fabric, a pillow, a quilt I love and I pull all the colors from that as my anchor fabric. For example . . . Continue reading →

Krissie has dubbed The Chair “Popeye” because it only has one button on its back (so far), so I’ve started calling the other things around The Chair by other names from the Popeye cast. The easiest project so far: Bluto, an oversized footstool that competes with Popeye as major seating (that sucker is big). Bluto entered my life as a very old black leather-topped ottoman that my next door neighbor had put out for a porch sale and failed to sell. I put a four-inch-thick piece of foam on top, covered that with batting, and then stretched some upholstery material over that. Why I liked that upholstery is beyond me; it’s butt ugly. But Bluto is now reborn and here’s how I did it using the Crusie Non-Professional Really Sloppy But Oddly Soothing Upholstery Method. (Hand-sewing makes me calm.) Continue reading →

Since Krissie mentioned The Chair, and I need a post for today before we go to Staples and JoAnn’s (bliss), I will show you the The Unfinished Chair. What happened was that the day after I realized I probably had AMD and found the letter from my doctor confirming that I had diabetes, I started doing laundry obsessively (which was good because I had mountains of it). And in between loads, I decided to reupholster the entire house. Well, a lot of the dark furniture in the house. It was too damn depressing. Since then I’ve painted a lot of it white–more to come–and Alastair painted all the woodwork in the living room white because I was coming unglued and it helped (it’s fabulous)–but that night, I wanted to do something right away, something that was hands on, something that I wouldn’t have to think about but could just do by instinct, aka “That looks right, that doesn’t look right.” Kind of like collaging a chair. Continue reading →